Fighting to protect the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains from the devastating impacts of mining.
Curt Prendergast, Arizona Daily Star
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service erred in allowing a mining project to move forward without a detailed environmental review.
In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez in Tucson said the drilling likely would exceed the one-year period required for a categorical exclusion to environmental assessment. Therefore, the Forest Service’s decision to grant the exclusion was arbitrary and capricious, she ruled.
Sparking controversy, two proposed copper mines in Arizona National Forest have different meanings to different people in the state.
Both the Rosemont and Oak Flat mine proposals are entrenched in the promise of economic prosperity and environmental degradation from the opposing sides.
One undisputable fact, from both views, is that a section of the federally protected land would be lost forever.
The Gold King mine spill has been an ecological disaster, may affect population health and has hurt businesses. The mine owners are not around to pay for cleanup, if it is even possible.
The 1870s mining law has been obsolete and harmful for years. Why haven’t our governmental representatives replaced this law? It couldn’t be the mining lobby, could it?
There is a lesson for us in Tucson regarding the Rosemont mine. All the owners’ protestations to the contrary, mining is a dirty business with a history of walking away from problems after the profits have been secured.
Dennis Winsten
Northeast side
DENVER – Beneath the western United States lie thousands of old mining tunnels filled with the same toxic stew that spilled into a Colorado river last week, turning it into a nauseating yellow concoction and stoking alarm about contamination of drinking water.
Though the spill into the Animas River in southern Colorado is unusual for its size, it’s only the latest instance of the region grappling with the legacy of a centuries-old mining boom that helped populate the region but also left buried toxins.
Until the late 1970s there were no regulations on mining in most of the region, meaning anyone could dig a hole where they liked and search for gold, silver, copper or zinc. Abandoned mines fill up with groundwater and snowmelt that becomes tainted with acids and heavy metals from mining veins which can trickle into the region’s waterways. Experts estimate there are 55,000 such abandoned mines from Colorado to Idaho to California, and federal and state authorities have struggled to clean them for decades. The federal government says 40 percent of the headwaters of Western waterways have been contaminated from mine runoff.
As copper prices stay high, the industry’s jobs machine keeps humming in Southern Arizona and statewide.
The region’s two major mining companies, Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold and Asarco, have more employees on their Arizona payrolls today than they did a year ago. They are looking to hire more workers now than they were a year ago. They also continue to have expansion or potential expansion plans, just as they did a year ago.
Although copper prices are a bit lower today than a year ago – $3.75 a pound compared to $4.05 to $4.30 then – prices remain very high by historical standards. Accordingly, the recent price drop has had no effect on Arizona copper-industry employment, the companies say.
Another shocking sight of the incredible destruction happening on our beautiful Santa Ritas.WATCH VIDEO NOW
In Nov 2022 Russ captured recent bulldozing in the Santa Rita Mountains. His video starts over the Rosemont mine project on the east side and then swings over the Copper World project on the west side. WATCH VIDEO NOW
Check out Pima County’s updated map of the proposed mine site. Click on any spot on the map for ownership/status information. Mapping details are based on Hudbay’s PEA dated May 1.
